If you know me at all, you probably know that Halloween is my favorite holiday. If you know me well, you probably know that my favorite Halloween movie is Trick 'r Treat, the 2007 festive anthology film directed by Michael Dougherty. Its brilliant script, flawless pacing, subversive themes, and dark humor make it a perfect celebration of the holiday as well as an effective horror flick. It's a spellbinding concoction that ties together traditional tropes with terrifying new ideas, all presented with a vicious glee and fierce understanding of the cult audience it aims for.
When I heard that Dougherty was making a Christmas movie -- and that it took its title from the Germanic character of legend -- I was ecstatic. I was thinking that he would make the same kind of film, just shifted to focus on Christmas.
That's not what he did.
Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. But in enjoying it, I had to take several factors into account. To begin with: It's a Christmas movie. That implies, by definition, a certain sentimentality, and often a distinctly campy flair. Just look at the remake, Black X-Mas (2006), which largely ignores the raw horror of the 1974 original and replaces it with a (no less terrifying) materialistic vision of the holiday, replete with stupid characters under hallucinatory holiday lights, decorations and treats turned into weapons, and a dazzling set design drenched in kitsch and blood. Krampus shares a similar flair, from its opening sequence of a department store holiday fight in slow motion, to an almost giddy sensation we feel as demonic toys devour the children on Christmas night. It's a full-fledged horror comedy, but the comedy is tempered by sentiment and the horror is tempered by a PG-13 rating.
Maybe I just don't understand some bizarre subtleties of the film, but it also just doesn't always make sense. It's as though Dougherty, in order to keep his PG-13 rating, was forced to tone down the sheer horror of the film, and so instead he just smashed the little bits of horror he had to spare into a relatively tight frame of time, to make the film more fast-paced and kinetic, and thereby more "exciting". If only he had been able to take his time and let the horror unfold on its own terms, the film might be able to stand on its own a bit better. As it is, it feels like a snowy fever dream wrapped up in a nice bow and placed under a tree. It's a little too nice for its own good.
And maybe I'm just a bit desensitized, or maybe I'm just hungry for another sacrilegious Christmas movie after so long, but I really think pushing the rating up to an R would have helped. At first I thought extending the running time would have helped, but a 90-something minute horror film is generally enough time to work some magic. But with an R, we could have had that little bit of violence that might make certain characters' deaths more believable, or at least less silly. We also could have had a bit more real child endangerment (which is, unless I'm mistaken, a central point to the Krampus myth anyway), which might sound callous, but when the characters end up simply swallowed whole by monsters, it's about as "terrifying" as seeing the Sarlaac eat Boba Fett. Which is to say, not.
There are some real gems in here, though. There's a sequence (my favorite in the picture) where Omi, the grandmother, relates a story from her youth, in which her family was tormented by Krampus for losing the spirit of Christmas before being dragged to hell. The sequence looks not unlike the Tale of Three Brothers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, being an animated scene with amber lighting and apparently 2-D shadow puppets. And between sequences of gingerbread men attacking the family, and dark elves peering at them from behind wicked-looking snowmen (that I'm pretty sure come straight from Calvin and Hobbes: Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons), I was never not utterly entertained. There's another moment when a character first sees the figure of Krampus, perched atop a snow-covered roof, which then gives chase by leaping across roofs as the girl runs, screaming, to her fate. Oh, and the design of Krampus is brilliant. Just spectacular. If only he had a more direct role in the film, and not his many minions. Alas.
I guess my final takeaway here is that it's the little things that matter. There are a lot of little homages here, from an attack with a nail gun (from the Evil Dead remake) to the dreamlike ending (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and from the sister's unpleasant family (Christmas Vacation) to Krampus's calling card (The Polar Express), the film is full of conversation for cinephiles. It'll take me a couple more viewings, I'm sure, to catch all the details. That's one area where Dougherty did not fail me here.
So, if you're going to see this one, try and go in expecting a comedy. That's mostly what it is, albeit a dark comedy, and one with some fantasy fun and a strong theme of family. Toni Collette and Adam Scott are a charming couple, and do a damn fine job as parents caught in chaos. And if you're expecting fun, the scare elements will be far more effective in adding some chills to your cold winter nights.
IMDb: Krampus
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